Nobody knows what the official terms mean. When someone I know asked a bishop about the Extraordinary Form, he hadn't a clue what she was talking about! Yet... he knew exactly what she meant when she said Traditional Latin Mass.

Unfortunately, using the Latin names of documents and "Extraordinary Form" hits a swith in people's brains which causes them to think, "This person knows more, or thinks they know more, than I do and based upon that, I'm shutting down thinking until they are done with what is going to be a rant that I care less about.'

Saying "The beautiful, old Latin Mass" instead can conjure up in their mind a kind person who is wistful about the old Mass....

Because of a few extremists, I used to call the EF the "Flat-Earther" mass. They were generally, and to put it charitably, nuts. However, the majority are pretty good folks, so I have had to revise that considerably. Now I refer to the EF crowd, and the "Flat Earthers." A more accurate description, would be the majority of good folks who attend the EF, and the minority of conspiracy theorists.

We all have to constantly remind ourselves that the worst/goofiest members of any population and subculture are not good proxies for the rest of the group.

I used to think ill of lots of groups, particularly conservatives/traditionalists of various stripes. I've been blessed to have my eyes opened (for the most part) in that regard.

But now I have to watch closely my thoughts regarding liberals and progressives, lest I start believing that they're all a bunch of puppet-building, tie-dyed-stole-wearing hippies.

At any rate- most people who attend ANY sort of church service, of any style or denomination, are sincere people seeking after God in whatever way they know how. Even the crazy ones are deserving of our charity.

Or to remake a usually-distressing saying:Sing to all of 'em, and let God sort it out.

The periodic appearance of this rite in the mainstream of Catholic life is to be valued. But its continued life in our culture is ironically dependent on the the ordinary form as a means of bringing the liturgy to the people in the most direct way, as a teacher and guide. The ordinary form is and will remain the liturgy that Catholic culture knows best, and through it Catholics can grow to develop a special appreciation for the magnificence of what came before.

Pope Benedict XVI was extremely wise in institutionalizing these names: ordinary and extraordinary form. We can take these terms literally and use them in the modern sense to understand what the future holds as regards the two forms of the Roman Rite.

As to what to call the two forms of Roman Catholic Mass - how about the Mass of Paul VI and the Mass of Pius V. Of course it would be the same problem, I doubt most people would even know what the Mass of Paul VI means. I suppose we could call the Tridentine Mass the Mass of St. Whirligig the Great but it isn't... exactly.

I vote for EF and OF here on the forum because it is faster to type which gives me more time to research my conspiracy theories -- I'm smiling.

I can't believe it but I am going to disagree with Jeffrey >•<.<br />"The periodic appearance of this rite in the mainstream of Catholic life is to be valued. But its continued life in our culture is ironically dependent on the the ordinary form as a means of bringing the liturgy to the people in the most direct way, as a teacher and guide. The ordinary form is and will remain the liturgy that Catholic culture knows best, and through it Catholics can grow to develop a special appreciation for the magnificence of what came before."

As long as the EF does not have parity with the OF, the church is going to stagger on in confusions. Until the EF has pride of place, or whatever that phrase is, Catholic liturgy and liturgical music is going to be subpar

When the EF is back and preferred, then and only then will decent, inspiring liturgies of the OF become prevalent.

If you permit prom-goers to show up in torn jeans and dirty tennis shoes, the prom is no longer a special event in lives. "But poor kids can't afford dresses and tuxedos." The poor will always be with us, but lowering standards to be inclusive....well, by gosh, that's exactly why 99.9% of Catholic music programs are miserable and without quality of any sort.

Let's not get too picky about wording. I think the EF/OF descriptors are ideal (leaving aside the complete fabrication of "Form", but that's another matter), but I don't see a need to ban or constantly correct someone using pejorative or polemic titles. (THE MASS OF ALL TIME, for example....)

DougS, you are correct. The 1962 missal is not Tridentine. In its earlier incarnation, it had already been substantially revised by Pius XII. John XXIII created his own revisions. Calling it Tridentine is, at best, disingenuous. At worst, it is fraudulent. There are those modern day spin doctors who want to present that missal as pure, unaltered and stretching back into antiquity. It ain't so.

However the the revisions of Pius XII and John XXIII were very minor in comparison to what happened with the Mass of Paul VI. So, yes indeed you can refer to the 1962 Missal as Tridentine if you so choose, many priests who celebrate this Mass and congregations which assist at this Mass do indeed call it the Tridentine Mass.

Revisions are minor or major depending on one's viewpoint. It is dependent on what agenda one is pushing. I wouldn't call the Holy Week revisions of Pius XII minor, by any means. Granted, I don't know exactly how many times the Pius V missal was revised over the centuries. However, the process of missal revision seems to be an ongoing activity stretching from the early days until the present time. I take issue with those EF Catholics who try to present the EF as untouched and constant throughout time. It is, as currently practiced, the mass as it existed in 1962, despite how some of its adherents try to label it.

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I whole heartedly agree with you that anyone who believes the EF has remained untouched and constant throughout time is ignorant of liturgical history. However the revisions to the Mass since the 9th century at least, have been additions of feasts, compositions of prayers to attend new feasts, removal of prefaces, most of them local, (I mean really, hundreds of prefaces are just not necessary--but you can argue they are), retooling Gregorian Chants to match new words, etc. Its a blip on the Richter scale.

Changing the cycle of the Mass by making it a 3 year cycle, removing prayers which were additions of another council, and the addition of newly composed Eucharistic Prayers no matter how worthy they are (I just love Eucharistic Prayer III), is not a blip but a 9.8, and I am not even mentioning the language change, oh...I did.

I would agree the 3 year cycle is a bit strange. I don't know where that came from! The addition of Eucharistic prayers is different, but no longer new. All that is 40+ years old now, and as time passes, will be even less new in the future. As I have said elsewhere on this forum, my favorite was the 1965 missal. I would have liked to keep that one. However, the Church didn't ask me, or you, or hardly anyone else for that matter.

I can see why changes were needed, and I agree with many of them. Being old enough to remember the mass prior to 1965, it had become too clericalized and what I would call, schola-ized. The congregation was essentially frozen out of singing the parts belonging to them (Ordinary). Some of those mass settings were way too ornate for congregations to sing.

However, change is relative. Some of what you mention I, too, would call major. Other items seem relatively minor to me. Remember the sequences! Circle the home schoolers and take up arms! Starch those mantillas until they have a razor edge. Kick revisionist behind! LOL.

Hahaha, I tried wearing the mantilla because I do think they are beautiful and are probably more appropriate when assisting at the EF, but could never form the habit. When I am singing the longer ones really bother me.

The 3 year cycle was explained to me as being a need for more scripture. I did look through some of the People's Mass books from the '63 - '65 period and I like them very much, too bad that wasn't the Mass we got because I think there would have been fewer squabbles and much less hurt that was caused by such a shift.

The idea of a multi-year cursus through Scriptures was approved in #51 of SC:

"The treasures of the bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God's word. In this way a more representative portion of the holy scriptures will be read to the people in the course of a prescribed number of years."

I suspect that the three-year period was suggested by: (i) the fact that the Gospels have typically ruddered the Scripture at Mass, and (ii) the fact that there are three Synoptic Gospels (one of them much shorter than the other, allowing supplementation from the Gospel of John, which is also used heavily on major feasts throughout the year and in the OF also through all Easter Sundays in each year). In Sundays of Ordinary Time, where there tends to be course reading (with some gaps) through the respective Synoptic Gospel, the first readings are normally paired with the Gospels (ditto the Responsorial Psalms), while the second readings are on their own separate course reading (with some gaps).

I definitely treasure the OF Lectionary. Doesn't mean there wouldn't be things I might suggested tweaking or improving if someone asked me, but it's no less a treasure.

As Michael Davies used to say about the new readings, something like, Yag begat Yog who begat Yig. I have no problem with scripture, but it is hard to find relevancy in some passages added to the mass.

It's not a binary choice. One can do both. And the Lectionary of the OF is one reason I don't have an interest in the EF. I remember the EF Lectionary from the 1960s. The OF was like moving from B&W to Technicolor (mind you, I love B&W films and photos, but you can shoot glorious B&W in color - for an example, see the German film The White Ribbon). It's one of the things I am most grateful for the conciliar reform.

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Catholics don't need more scripture in the Mass, they need more scripture outside of the Mass. There's no substitute for independent scripture study.

That is an ideal that, sadly, is absent for the vast majority of Catholics. If expanded exposure to Holy Scripture educates as well as edifies us in preparation for the Eucharist at Mass, I see no problem with it at all.

I have a 1952 St. Andrew Missal. I have absolutely no problem using it at the current EF Mass. The revisions done between those two dates were really very minor except for the Triduum, and even there I can get along just fine. On the other hand, this Missal would be absolutely useless in trying to follow the Novus Ordo.

If I had an OF missal from exactly 12 months ago, I would have a difficult time using it in the OF Mass today. Perhaps I am wrong, but I am not aware of the Mass of St. Pius V ever going through as much revision at one time as the Mass of Paul VI just did. (To be clear, I am in favor of the current revision - I think it is a great improvement.)

So I really have no problem calling the EF the Tridentine Mass. It is in all essentials the same Missal St. Pius V promulgated. "The Mass of All Time," well, that's another issue.

On another note, as a new member of this community, I wonder if we could lose the acronyms (my own use of EF and OF in this post notwithstanding). I have read many posts where I simply couldn't figure out what the author was talking about. I'm sure they are obvious to those who have been around a while, but I'm afraid a new person to this site, or someone new to Catholic liturgical music, might get lost. Or, perhaps there could be a list of acronyms put in one place on this website people could refer to?

JBlaze, you are comparing apples and oranges. Since the Paul VI missal followed in the wake of a major ecumenical council that commented directly on liturgical matters, a more reasonable comparison would be a missal from 1570-1962 to a pre-Trent missal (and of course there were many, not just one). You would find that the Pius V missal did make major changes that rendered earlier missals virtually useless.

DougS: I don't disagree, but I may not have made my point clear. I was only trying to explain why it is not incorect to call the 1962 missal the Tridentine Mass. It would be interesting to compare the 1570 and 1962 missals, noting the number and magnitude of the differences, and then doing the same with the 1969 and the current one. If we still call the current one the Novus Ordo, then we can call the previous one the Tridentine.

The term I don't like is "Traditional Latin Mass". That is an immediately slight which makes the OF look "untraditional". The EF Mass is not that old, in terms of the age of the Church. It is certainly not exactly the Mass of St. Peter. Conversely, the OF Mass contains elements which go right back to the Apostles. The OF Mass is much closer to the Antiochene rites, which are the oldest rites of the Church. And the OF Mass can certainly be chanted in Latin just as well as the EF Mass can.

When we speak of Sacramentaries or Missals or the Mass the Church uses I think we need to narrow that discussion to what the Vatican uses not what some bishop in the north of France used in the 16th century or even what was used in Toledo or Milan. We can't speak about the Missal of Pope Paul VI and then jump to speaking about how much the Mass has changed unless we zone in on the Mass used in Rome.

The term I don't like is "Traditional Latin Mass". That is an immediately slight which makes the OF look "untraditional". The EF Mass is not that old, in terms of the age of the Church. It is certainly not exactly the Mass of St. Peter. Conversely, the OF Mass contains elements which go right back to the Apostles. The OF Mass is much closer to the Antiochene rites, which are the oldest rites of the Church. And the OF Mass can certainly be chanted in Latin just as well as the EF Mass can.

Well, since you brought it up:

traditional != oldtraditional = old and continuous (and probably other things, for that matter)

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Ruth, the LU was also designed for monastic communities that celebrate LOH and daily Mass as a matter of course, in which case attendance numbers at a parish daily Mass wouldn't necessarily have been a practical consideration for its compilers.

"Really, numbers were the same? I wonder why they bothered printing the Liber Usualis then."

All of the chant books were created and printed for the use of monasteries and seminaries.

There is a little red book, chants of the church, on this site that was "The Parish Book of Chant" of the 1950's. That was, if you were lucky enough to have one, the chant book.

Your pastor and associate would have a Liber. You'd never see it in use. The associate at my parish gave me his.

The choir sang propers out of Carlo Rossini's book as did the little old ladies and young organists like myself, did alone at daily Mass. In the 60's the nuns who came to early Mass began singing the ordinary when parishes were encouraged to do so.

If you really, really want to know what it was like, lock yourself in a room with the St. Gregory Hymnal and Choirbook for about 6 weeks. That was it, the largest and most common choirbook in use.

I think some on the forum who use, "Tridentine," may be attempting to give the missal of 1962 greater legitimacy and demonstrate superiority over the lowly mass of 1970 (OF or NO). I don't buy it, their smug attitudes, or their obnoxious wrong-headedness. The EF is the mass from the Missal of 1962. The OF is the Roman Missal now in widespread use. Mine has a copyright date of 2010. So take your mantillas and shove them. May the moths eat all your maniples and your children join up with Benny Hinn. LOL. Just happened to think, that's "Benny Hen" for those familiar with the Liturgical Mysteries.